


Light On the Water

by sterlinglee



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Fluff, M/M, YakuLev Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-29
Updated: 2014-08-29
Packaged: 2018-02-14 10:14:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2187921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sterlinglee/pseuds/sterlinglee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><br/>Nekoma at the lake, in the swing of summer.  All things surface from here.</p>
<p>
  <em>“Don’t listen to him,” Yaku says easily, and it’s more for Kuroo’s sake than Lev’s, but then their eyes meet and Yaku bursts into laughter rare and bright.  Lev takes it as permission to tumble into laughter too.  They float side by side at the center of a spreading ripple-ring, gasping and splashing, chilly and breathless and light.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Right then, Lev is the luckiest person on a whole planet of blue water.</em>
  <br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	Light On the Water

Lev’s long stride carries him one, two, three steps down the pier and then he’s in the air with a yell calculated to add maximum flash to his cannonball leap. Water blooms up around him, white foam and droplets spinning high. He comes up snorting, and Yaku curls his toes around the last weathered board with a grin.  


“Got water up your nose, didn’t you!” he calls, wrapping one hand around a post and leaning out, his reflection swaying on the pond’s green surface. “It’s your own fault for shouting like that.”  


“You can’t jump _quiet,_ ” Lev protests, clawing soaked hair out of his eyes and paddling back to the pier. “You gonna come in or not?”  


“Don’t rush me,” Yaku says, and today he makes a play on his usual composure, lifting his chin with mock-seriousness. “I’m waiting for the right time.”  


“Which is…?”  


Yaku glances back over his shoulder. Kai is stalking Inuoka and Shibayama with a bottle of sunscreen, while Kenma eyes the water dubiously and Yamamoto tries to get Fukunaga to quit paddling his feet in the shallows and jump. Kuroo is making his way up the pier. Yaku rocks backwards on his heels and throws Lev a smiling, secret look—he’s not sure why he does it, only that he wants to see anticipation and delight bloom on Lev’s face like sundapples in the lake’s clear shallows.  


“Are you planning on standing there all day,” Kuroo begins, and before the sentence is halfway out Yaku’s skipped back, wound up, running. He tucks himself into a ball and comes down just a little ways from the pier, thoroughly soaking his captain with the resultant splash.  


Kuroo is a _sight_ when wet. His hair flops down over his face, effectively blinding him, and a dribble of sunscreen he neglected to rub in slides down the side of his nose. His shout of alarm is deeply undignified. Triumphant, Yaku does an impromptu backflip, kicking off the pier and arcing through the water to where Lev is floating.  


“That first-year’s a bad influence on you, Yaku-san,” Kuroo drawls, and it might have sounded threatening but for the fact that he’s stuck in the wet tangle of his t-shirt as he tries to pull it over his head. Lev gives a quick snort of laughter and then glances furtively around as he remembers his place in the order of things.  


“Don’t listen to him,” Yaku says easily, and it’s more for Kuroo’s sake than Lev’s, but then their eyes meet and Yaku bursts into laughter rare and bright. Lev takes it as permission to tumble into laughter too. They float side by side at the center of a spreading ripple-ring, gasping and splashing, chilly and breathless and light.  


Right then, Lev is the luckiest person on a whole planet of blue water. On impulse, he takes in a deep breath and sinks down beneath the surface, delighted when Yaku follows him unbidden. This lake is clear, sandy underfoot. Bubbles wobble and rise from Yaku’s smiling mouth and Lev hums to hear his voice buzzing through the water between them. When his breath’s about to run out he kicks his feet and rises towards the hazy outline of sun and branches up above.  


A mammoth splash hits him in the back of the head. He spins just in time to catch another one in the face, and when he blinks it clear Fukunaga is watching him with just a hint of a cat’s pleased grin. He’s perched on Yamamoto’s shoulders, his narrow chest shadowed blue with cold and his hands hovering, like birds.  


“Gotcha in one!” Yamamoto crows, tightening his grip on Fukunaga’s ankles and ducking him out of the way of Lev’s startled retaliatory splash. They careen into Inuoka and Shibayama, similarly stacked with Shibayama hanging on like death to his taller classmate.  


Yaku’s surfaced by this time, and one look is enough for him to read the longing abruptly branded across Lev’s heart. This lake trip will not be complete, won’t save him from the agony of untouched possibility or early-morning regret years and years down the line, unless he can get in on the chicken fight. Yaku considers his options, or lack thereof.  


“Hey, crouch down,” he says.  


Lev is incandescent. He bends and lets Yaku hoist himself up onto his shoulders, water sluicing off their bodies as he straightens. Yaku settles himself and lets Lev take hold of his ankles. From on high, he surveys the enemy.  


Yamamoto is deeply familiar with the expression on his face, and out of reflex he takes a few steps back. Fukunaga swats him unceremoniously on the ear to halt his retreat, but even he’s wary because they all know Yaku does not enter a contest of any kind without intending to win. Shibayama quails.  


“Those two first,” Yaku orders, pointing at Shibayama and Inuoka. He sounds as confident as ever but a part of him is skitteringly nervous all of a sudden with the knowledge that _he’s sitting on Lev_ or maybe that _Lev is carrying him_ —each step translates into a pleasingly perilous wobble, a sway, a moment where he’s certain that gravity will take him. Then Lev balances them, both feet on the sandy lakebed.  


Inuoka whoops and crashes away through the water, Shibayama clutching his shoulders and doing a passable job of steering him. Their coordination is good but Lev is just _taller_ , and Yaku knows his junior libero very well. As soon as they’re in range, he feints for Shibayama’s armpits. True to ticklish form, the younger boy yelps and hugs his arms tight to himself. He overbalances and drops backwards into the water with a startled cry.  


“He didn’t even tickle you yet!” Inuoka exclaims, flopping backwards into the lake for no reason other than that it seems to be the thing to do right then. Lev bounces up dangerously on his toes, crowing victory and forcing Yaku to grab at his shoulders to stay seated.  


“Nice one, Yaku-san! If you ride on my shoulders you’re unstoppable, huh!”  


“Aren’t you ever embarrassed by the stuff you say,” Yaku snipes, but when he remembers that Lev can’t see him smiling he smacks the taller boy’s shoulder playfully. “More like you need me to sit up here and do the thinking for you.”  


“Aw, whatever,” Lev says good-naturedly. “Let’s go get Taketora-san and Fukunaga-san!”  


Victory is a longer time coming against the second-years, but they manage to take the elusive Fukunaga down when Kuroo, of all people, sends an almighty wave in their direction.  


“You’re getting too close to the shallows,” he says, shrugging like he’s just daring them to protest. Fukunaga spits a stream of water into the air as he bobs up again. “Kenma doesn’t wanna get soaked by you morons.”  


Yaku kicks a spray of water in his direction for the ‘morons’ comment, and Kuroo’s answering smirk tells him plainly that he’s going to be judged by the company he keeps.  


“Come on, Lev,” he says, bouncing his heel gently against Lev’s chest. “Let’s go get the tire swing down out of the tree. I bet we can reach it like this.” Lev’s pulse trips erratically for no sensible reason, and to distract himself he wades steadily towards the thick-trunked, squatting oak that leans out over the water.  


The swing is coiled along the widest branch, not yet unwound for the start of this year’s warm season. Fallen leaves shiver in the ripples caused by Lev’s passing. Yaku stretches up to unhook the tire.  


“Careful—all right, back up, I’m going to let it go.” Lev feels the grip of Yaku’s legs tighten as he stretches forward—he bends his head so the libero can maximize his reach. Yaku tenses and then relaxes as he pulls the tire free and lets it swing out over the water. “…You can let go now,” he tells Lev, almost gently.  


Lev realizes he has his hands wrapped around Yaku’s ankles again. He lets go, startled, and feels the vibration of Yaku’s laugh before he hears it.  


“I wasn’t gonna fall,” Yaku says. “Thanks, though.” And then he’s shifting his weight again, leaning further and further still with a hand on either side of Lev’s head. He plants a kiss in Lev’s tangled wet bangs.  


For a moment, they sway, reflections dim on the shadowed face of the lake. Then Yaku leans back and settles himself again, correcting their balance and drawing a hand idly up through Lev’s hair. “That’s okay, right?” he says, so quietly that only someone whose head is at the level of his heart could hear.  


“Um,” Lev says hoarsely, wondering why the moment when he wants to leap, sing, shout, is the moment when his voice deserts him. “Yeah. ‘S okay. I mean, uh, definitely! It’s definitely really okay, not like ‘uhh okay,’ okay but really—just really _good_ —”  


“Okay,” Yaku says, laughing. “Enough already, don’t hurt yourself.” He bounces a loose fist off the top of Lev’s head and thinks of diving, of floating, of the first breath you take when your face breaks the surface of the water. “I know what you mean.”

**Author's Note:**

> yakulev: recommended to you, your family, and your pets for less stress and better living. this is so relentlessly fluffy please excuse


End file.
